Mastrodonato: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred continues childish reign as Ken Rosenthal is let go over gentle criticism

Under commissioner Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball is becoming less of a game by the day.

It’s just entertainment. And he wants to control which parts of the game you’re entertained by.

Integrity of the game — what’s that mean?

Manfred has uttered the words before, plenty of times, actually. And with each passing year, those words become less and less meaningful.

The latest of Manfred’s debacles is easily the most childish.

To those of us who love baseball for all the beautiful conversation topics and exciting arguments to be had, Manfred kicked us in the stomach this week when it was revealed by the New York Post that Ken Rosenthal, the most decorated and trusted baseball journalist of the millennium, was let go by the league-owned MLB Network due to gentle criticism of Manfred in a column he wrote almost two years ago in the summer of 2020, when Manfred made a mockery of the game by flip-flopping his stance on the likelihood of a season and publicly whining about dollars and cents amidst a deadly global pandemic.

With the country reeling without sports, Manfred went on the state-owned media network to say there would “100%” be a baseball season in 2020. After months of public debate about how much of a pay-cut the players must take in order to have a season, Manfred’s comments were a relief to all.

Five days later, Manfred went on ESPN and looked like a grim reaper as he told the world he was no longer confident a season would happen, lobbing blame at the players.

The players offered to take a 63% pay cut to play a shortened season. It was the largest pay cut offered in any sport across the globe at the time. And Manfred implied the players were still being unreasonable.

Rosenthal, who worked for MLB Network for 13 years and also is the lead sideline reporter for Fox Sports and the lead baseball writer for The Athletic, wrote about Manfred’s sloppy handling of the issue at the time. Rosenthal correctly pointed out that while the world was reeling from loss, the commissioner’s public spat with the players was “tone-deaf” and if Manfred didn’t find a way to have a season in 2020, it would “ruin his legacy.”

Nation-wide, the perspective was similar.

And yet it was a column by Rosenthal that got him canned from MLB Network, according to the Post.

Rosenthal implied the Post’s report was accurate in a tweet this week, saying, “Can confirm MLB Network has decided not to bring me back. I’m grateful for the more than 12 years I spent there, and my enduring friendships with on-air personalities, producers and staff. I always strove to maintain my journalistic integrity, and my work reflects that.”

How does Manfred’s history of integrity stack up?

Under Manfred, MLB bought the Rawlings plant that produces baseballs in 2018. A year later, an unexpected increase in home runs took place. It was later determined that the baseballs had been changed. Manfred denied that MLB knew about it. Players expressed different feelings.

Early in 2020, Manfred called the World Series trophy “a piece of metal” while defending his decision to suspend a select few coaches and front office members for the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal in 2017. He did not discipline any players, nor Astros owner Jim Crane.

In 2021, it was revealed again that MLB made changes to the baseballs. They used two different balls without any clear rhyme or reason throughout the season. MLB later confirmed the report and blamed it on the pandemic, noting that Rawlings couldn’t produce enough new baseballs and the league had to use some old ones. Sure. Whatever.

In the middle of the same season, Manfred decided to create a rule banning substances on the pitchers’ mound. The players had no say in the rule. Teams like the Red Sox, who spent $10 million on Garrett Richards because of his ability to spin a curveball, saw some of their highest-paid players become non-factors. Manfred told the New York Times the rule was “really important in terms of the integrity of the game.”

A few months later, MLB went on a full-fledged marketing campaign with gambling companies and the results were embarrassing as FOX’s lead commentators, Joe Buck and John Smoltz, spent so much air time discussing prop bets and over/unders it often overshadowed the product on the field.

The same sport once plagued by the “Black Sox” scandal, Pete Rose’s gambling and the steroid era had suddenly thrown caution to the wind.

Integrity of the game? C’mon.

Do fans just want to hear about how great everything is all time? Or do they want to engage in interesting discussions about who was wrong and right, who was successful or unsuccessful, who made good decisions or bad decisions?

We don’t spend the offseason pumping up every team for how great they did in free agency. No, we pick winners and losers.

That’s what makes sports fun: winners and losers.

But Manfred evidently doesn’t want that when it comes to evaluating his own performance. He wants to talk only about his wins.

Does he have any?

Rosenthal will surely be a Hall of Famer one day.

As for Manfred? Well, we better keep our mouths shut.